


You don't Choose the Helmslife

by BagtheBagisnotaBag



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Amnesia, Body Horror, Brainwashing, Feelings, Helmstroll Sollux Captor, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Multi, Quadrant Confusion, Quadrant Vacillation, Serious Injuries, made up troll jobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 05:19:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15163523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BagtheBagisnotaBag/pseuds/BagtheBagisnotaBag
Summary: The helmslife takes you from your hive and tortures you till you crack."In Which a Seadweller Captain of the Imperial Fleet and His Lowblooded Matesprite Find Their Long Lost Childhood Friend Suffering as a Yellowblood Helmsman Trainee, They Then Proceed to Enlist the Damaged Helmsman to Helm Their Ship as Both of Them Hold Long Buried Romantic Interest in Him. Includes Emotional Turmoil, Psychological Torment, One Sided Pale Advances, Unintentional Auspising, Excessive Swearing, Delusions, Crying, Yelling, Monologing, Torture, Treason of the Cullable Variety, and Hope."





	You don't Choose the Helmslife

**Author's Note:**

  * For [addledAuthor (Liamchip)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liamchip/gifts).



> a gift (:B
> 
> prompt: "For these three, I was thinking definitely a darker fic, something that could make me cry. Maybe something with Sollux as helmsman to Eridans ship where Karkat works?"

Eridan puts on an air of boredom even though he is secretly thrilled. This is the culmination of two sweeps worth of training, schmoozing, and swimming up to his gills in aristocratic blue blood nook. Blue bloods who only outrank him by the shear number of sweeps they are closer to being culled. The old fucks.

He follows the teal blood in front of him absently, not listening to her rehearsed monologue, instead peering in at every potential helmsman they pass. She’s droning on about the power levels and precision of the various locked up trolls, but Eridan is sure that when he sees his own helmsman he will Just Know. This will be his first ship. A ship worthy of a captain such as himself. 

Plus he already swanned the documentation for all these battery fuckers off on karkat. The only reason he is here in the Helmschooling Campersecution Hive Cluster on his lonesome is because he's hoping to look at one of these pitiless broken trolls and just know, deep in his essence wisp, that that troll is the one - the helmsman that will bring him riches and glory for the empire.

Eridan’s cell starts going off just as he sees the prophesized troll. Unconscious, pulled upright only by the chains of his wrists, slowly oozing blood from an uncountable number of small lacerations all over his body. Eridan’s blood runs cold and his eyes widen, unblinking. The teal blood continues to drone on, used to young seadwellers and their excitability. In shock, he pulls out the bleeping device.

CG: OH FUCK ERIDAN  
CG: I FOUND SOLLUX AFTER ALL THESE SWEEPS AND HE WAS RIGHT HERE RIGHT UNDER OUR SHITTING NOSES  
CG: GOD I COULD HAVE LOOKED HIM UP ITS NOT LIKE THEY HIDE WHOS IN HELMSMAN TRAINING THE FILES WHERE RIGHT THERE BUT I HAD TO LEAVE LOOKING FOR A HELMSMAN TO THE LAST FUCKING MINUTE  
CG: OH FUCK OH FUCK OHFUCK WHAT IF IM TOO LATE WHAT IF YOU DONT SEE THIS AND YOUVE ALREADY CHOSEN  
CG: AS IF ANY OTHER TROLL WOULD BE SITTING THERE SNIVELING IN THEIR CHAINS AND YOU WOULD LOOK AT THEM AND THINK IT SERIDIPENDY  
CG: WE HAVE TO TAKE HIM  
CG: ERIDAN  
CG: WE CANT LEAVE HIM  
CG: NO  
CG: I AM NOT FUCKING LEAVING HIM

Eridan gulps and flounders. The Teal Guidetorturer lady’s voice barely getting through the ringing in his ears. Well fuck. Eridan swallows again, and finds his voice. “I’ll take that one.” he points, trying to look snobbish and dismissive, ignoring that way his point nub is trembling slightly. 

“Ahh yess. One S. Captor I can see why you would pick that one though you must be aware that he is extremely powerful and though we have had him here for over a solar sweep he has been forcibly unreceptive to the training as I am sure you know having read the file.” her bored tone lets through a shred of sarcastic doubt at that, knowing full well how many of the trolls that pass through here do pre reading on their potential helmsmen. 

Eridan frowns, and waves his hand as if to dismiss her words “A course I read the glubbin’ file. I know exactly what I came here for and I said I want that one. I've chosen so get on with it.” That's right, he thinks, cover up your bluster with snobbishness, you probably outrank everyone on this rock. 

He’s as purple as they come and not averse to using that to his advantage. 

Her blank face doesn't change at his tone “Very well I’ll have S. Captor installed by the next evening before you are due to pick up you new ship from the yard.” She gives him a look that says of how much she disapproves of him leaving choosing a helmsman to the very last minute. It's not like he's done this whole spaceship designing and whatnot before. 

His only experience has been with Seafaring ships, but they just aren't the same. For one they can use the power of the tide and wind to move. In space, trolls have to create their own thrust. 

CA: i got him kar

As the teal Guidetorturer leads Eridan back out the way he came, he lets himself take one last look over his shoulder. He’s never seen Sollux bought so low. It makes his blood boil. 

* 

Karkat is a mess by the time Eridan gets back to their block. Eridan barely has time to note the papers strewn across the floor and the receptacle of bean beverage left untouched on the meal surface. Karkat is on Eridan before he’s even fully through the door, pulling him down by the horns and crashing their lips together. 

Eridan stumbles forward out of the hall, and melts into the kiss. It only takes him a second to get over his surprise before he is wrapping karkat up in his arms and pulling him flush against his body, his eyes closing on their own in the heat of the moment. 

Eridan murmurs against Karkat’s lips. He knows exactly where this sudden onslaught of affection is coming from. “We got him back, Kar,” He pecks Karkat on the lips, squeezing him tighter, his words still quiet “I can't believe we got him back. I mean, god,” another soft brush of lips. He can feel Karkat trembling against him, “I never thought i’d see anyone from our old life again.” 

Eridan pulls back slightly, opening his eyes to really look at Karkat. His eyes are shining, wide and intense, “I know! Fuck it’s going to be great to have him back.” He pulls away slightly, turning back towards the scattering of papers where, now that Eridan can see, one file has still retained its place on the meal surface rather than on the floor. 

“How did he look? His file just said he was resisting the conditioning but that it’s normal for a troll of his power.” Karkat snorts. “He’s going to be unbearable when he hears that. As if he needs the ego boost.” Karkat looks back at Eridan when his grip on Karkat tightens. “What?” 

Eridan swallows and pulls Karkat into a tighter hug. “He…” His voice wavers and a glub escapes his gills. “He didn’t look too good Kar.” Karkat has stopped trembling in his arms. He is shock still. “I didn't get too good a look at him.” 

A faint “Fuck” escapes Karkat from where he is pulled tight against Eridan's shoulder. Eridan pulls him in tighter and closes his eyes again. 

“But what I did see wasn't pretty.” 

*

Karkat is a ball of stress and barely repressed rage all through the rest of the night. The rest of the crew, all of them as wet behind the ears as Eridan himself, are making preparations for their new ship. The comings and goings of trolls reporting status updates and requesting Eridan or Karkat sign this or solve that progresses slowly into the morning. 

Eridan notices that some of _them_ notice the dark mood that permeates the room. It doesn't help that Eridan keeps sneaking glances over at Karkat when he thinks the other trolls present aren't looking (they are) and that Karkat hasn't cracked a joke at another crew members expense all night. In fact, his eyebrows have a deep furrow in them, and when he does insult someone, his loud grating laugh doesn't follow. 

It’s reached the point where Eridan's Lieutenenforcer, a blue blood, comments something about “Trouble in paradise. Eh?” nudging a junior Threshrecrute to join her in the sly remark and is promptly shouted out of the block by an enraged Karkat in the wake of all the other trolls in the block, who may or may not have been there to see Eridan or Karkat for some important reason. 

Once everyone but Karkat and Eridan has left, Karkat starts muttering to himself and stomps off to their sleeping block. Eridan takes the rest of the night's messages, feeling as tired as Karkat looked, into the early morning hours. 

Tomorrow he will be back out into space, with his own ship, and his own crew. He’s impatient to be off this lump of a space station, with its thin walls and pale slime. It’s been a long night. As he’s climbing into the ‘coop he almost doesn't notice that Karkat is still in his work clothes, his boots still on.

He snuggles into him anyway.

*

When Eridan wakes up to his alarm the next night it’s to an empty ‘coon and the banging of pots in the mealblock. He showers and gets dressed quickly. Out in the living block, Karkat is already at work, looking through paperwork for the day. He looks worse than the night before.

Granted his Secretortionist uniform is impeccable but the ever-present bags under his globes are more pronounced this evening and he barely grunts in greeting before frowning back down at the documents before him. 

Eridan sits beside him to eat his breakfast and stresses. The last reports from last morning told him they are behind schedule. Sure everyone in his crew is eager and rearing to go but none of them are experienced. He chose them for that reason. All the best crews from his historical novels and Karkat’s movies were handpicked and loyal to their captain from their first solo flight so Eridan had decided to do it that way. Even the helmsman had to be fresh and unflown. 

Sollux must be installed by now. They would have had to do it yesterday, to give him time to adjust to the wires. Adjusting to wires is something Eridan is sure he has read about somewhere. 

But neither Eridan nor Karkat has gotten a chance to see him since they found him. Yes, Eridan is in charge, but he is there to make all the important decisions, to receive orders from the imperial fleet and maybe even the Condecense herself. The crew takes care of the ship’s handling and maintenance. 

He picked the ship but hasn't even been on it since he did so. 

He is fuckin strung high waiting to see it. Though to be truthful with himself, and it’s his own head so there is no point not being truthful, the tension he feels is all centered around Sollux. 

Sollux, as of yesterday, is on his ship. He _is_ his ship. Sollux will be his eyes and ears, and with his will alone he will command where they go.

Sure a captain commands the ship but all good revolts start with the helmsman gaining independence. And that terrifies Eridan, recalling what the teal blood said about Sollux not taking well to the training.

Eridan tells himself this, while in the back of his mind he ignores the fact that, when he had seen Sollux for the first time, seen how broken he had become, some wall had broken in him, and a little bit if pure pity had trickled down into his cold seadweller blood. 

*

It’s closer to midnight than Eridan would like when he first steps into his newly renovated, imperial licensed spaceship. The metallic tang of new paint permeates everything and Eridan wrinkles his nose at the smell. 

This will only be a test flight. A week-long voyage to the nearest colony where they’ll again bunk down for a few days to check the ship over and rearrange crew. A lot of trolls tend to get culled in their maiden voyage, especially helmsmen, who have the most responsibility and power and are therefore most likely to succumb to the stress. 

Eridan is antsy to go straight down to the helmsblock to see Sollux but he knows it wouldn't be acceptable to leave the bridge before his ship is in the air and solidly in its course. 

That doesn't mean Karkat, as a simple Secretortionist, needs to stay in the bridge. At this stage, if any paperwork is not done it won't need to be done till they land in one week. With one look at Eridan, Karkat heads off in the direction of the helmsblock, while Eridan lifts his head high and continues forward to his captains' chair. 

The takeoff is almost instantaneous, a smooth ascent and low cruise out of the ship hanger door. It's the work of minutes to get out of the planet’s gravity well.

They circle the planet once in a wide arc, then land the reverse way they went out. Checking the ship over takes a few hours. It shouldn't have taken that long but a few minor faults are found that have to be fixed. Eridan takes the time making his own rounds, checking in with his Lieutenenforcer and other high ranked trolls, then slumping in his captain's chair for the rest of the wait.

By the time they are again in the air and actually set a course for their week-long journey it's been over three hours since Karkat left. The ship is set on a straight course to the nearest repair port, the simplest flight it can do after circling the planet.

*

Your name is Sollux Captor and you have run this simulation a thousand times. You extend your senses throughout every part of the ship. You feel the push of the engines, feeding them your psionic power as easy as breathing. You blink in and out of a hundred eyes, monitoring the ship through its cameras. Systems from all over the ship feed you information.

Your wetware still feels the real pain of installation, though not so sharply as it remembers the phantom pain of rebelling against the installation. How else are you meant to be taught, except to be put under agonizing pain with every mistake? Yet every time, for some masochistic reason, you always have to test it. 

For this simulation, the Captain has set you to fly around the planet and land back on it again. You can run this test in your sleep at this point. You perform the smoothest takeoff this side of the empire. You wonder why they are putting you back to such easy tasks? There must be a trick to it somehow. So you nudge the ship down a degree and tense, waiting. 

Waiting…

But no pain comes. 

This throws you off balance more than the pain ever did. Because it has always been consistent. The system knows exactly what you should be doing and has always punished deviation from its task. 

Just to check you nudge the ship another degree off course. 

Nothing.

This... 

This must be another test. There is no reason for the simulation to have put you on such an easy task unless it had changed something else about the simulation. 

You send a distress signal up to the Helmsmechanic, requesting a manual systems check. After a few minutes, command switches to manual up at the bridge, your cameras shut off and the inflow of information ceases.

Now all you can sense is the breathing of your wetware, the automatic pull at you psionics, the harsh sting of biowires freshly tunneled into your skin, and the quiet muttering of another troll in the room. 

With no cameras, it takes you a second to realize why you can't see anything.

You open your eyes.

This must be a new simulation room. It’s cleaner than the usual array of helmsblocks they dump you in. 

There is a troll fiddling with the maintenance panel. He is not in any Helmsmechanic uniform you've ever seen. 

But there’s nothing much you can do about that seeing as he turned off your control. Right now you're just a living battery, slowly being siphoned of your psionics. 

Another troll comes in this time in proper helmsmaintence attire. A brief shouting match ensues before the first troll is shoved aside. But instead of leaving to whatever block he should be working in he just walks closer to you.

You can't place his uniform. You wish your systems were online so you could look it up. You feel so naked in your flesh suit, so vulnerable. It looks like he’s trying to say something to you but you’re too distracted by his face. It niggles in the back of your mind but you just can't place it. 

You wish you had your systems back. You wish you hadn't called maintenance. The Helmsmechanic is fiddling with the control panel. Probably trying to figure out why you called distress. 

The face of the unknown troll still swims in front of you. It hurts your eyes, so you close them. You let yourself sink into the ebb and flow of your psionics as they are siphoned away. Something about his face. It hurts you deep in your bloodpusher. This torment is worse than pain. 

They must have realized the punishment of pain was not working on you. They must have taken you to this new block where they show you illusions of faces you can't quite place. 

Just before the Helmsmechanic brings your systems back online - quenching your spacial awareness and reconnecting you with all the sensors of the ship - you feel the soft touch of a hand on your cheek wiping the wetness there away. 

*

You perform a perfect circuit of the planet. You pull up the ship's files on its crew and find the troll who was in the helmsblock. Karkat Vantas. Rust blood. Secretortionist. You do not recognize the name. You do not know why it hurts.

*

By the time Eridan can finally leave his crew to handle the easiest voyage in the empire, it is well past his normal sleep time. 

CA: ok fuckin done  
CA: so far our maiden vvoyage has failed to be a travvisty and i am fuckin impressed wwith this creww  
CA: speakin a creww  
CA: i am reedy to meet my helmsman  
CA: howw is sol doin anywway kar  
CG: PRETTY SHIT AS FAR AS MY OCULAR GLOBES CAN SEE  
CG: HE ACTS LIKE A FUCKING DAYWALKER ALL NOT TALKING AND STARING OUT AT NOTHING  
CG: I JUST SPENT AN HOUR WATCHING HIS EYES TWITCH  
CA: he wwasnt evven conchious wwhen i found him  
CA: coddam  
CA: wwhat did they do to him in there  
CG: YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DID TO HIM  
CG: YOUVE SEEN THE MOVIES  
CA: yeah but like  
CA: i didnt think it wwould evver happen to one a our friends  
CA: sol wwas alwways so against the helmlife  
CG: YEAH  
CG: HE DIDNT WANT THIS  
CG: EVEN AS KIDS HE DESPISED THE IDEA OF BEING USED AS A BATTERY  
CG: I CAN HARDLY REMEMBER THE LAST TIME I SAW HIM  
CG: WE WERE SO YOUNG  
CA: finny you should mention that kar  
CA: i nevver did meet him before noww  
CA: like wwe vvideo trolled each other but  
CG: I KEEP FORGETTING THAT EVEN **WE** DIDNT MEET UNTIL YOU SMUGGLED ME OFF PLANET  
CA: haha i remember that day  
CA: i wwas so surprised aboat howw short you wwere  
CG: FUCK OFF  
CG: WHEN ARE YOU GETTING HERE ITS BEEN AGES  
CG: AND HONESTLY IM BORED AS GLOBES OF SITTING IN THIS DARK ROOM WITH AN UNRESPONSIVE MORON  
CA: hush your rumble spheres kar its a long wwalk from the bridge to the helm  
CA: im gettin there

In fact, Eridan chooses that moment to walk through the helmsdoor. The first thing he notices is Sollux, encased from the legs down in pink biowires. His arms pulled above his head, keeping him upright by even more pink tendrils. 

His head isn’t slack, he doesn't look dead and defeated in his constraints, like in the pale videos on TrollHub Eridan would never admit to watching. He is upright, his head and eyes moving as if following some complex task no one else can see. 

Eridan stares for a minutes before Karkat shifts and pulls himself out of the corner where he was also watching Sollux, putting his husktop away into his sylladex in the process. 

“I feel like a fucking asshole missing our maiden voyage just to babble incoherent emotions at a troll who cant talk back.” Eridan frowns slightly at Karkat’s words then looks back at Sollux.

“Yeah but think of it this way. I would’ve been right here with you, snivelin over Sol’s emancipated corpse, if it weren't my fuckin ship all maiden voyaging and all. We’re gonna be flyin this bloody ship for the next 6 sweeps, minimum. When was the last time you set eyes on a friend from the old days.” Karkat leans against Eridan at this point and takes his hand. 

Eridan feels the soft heat of Karkat’s hand in his and thinks wistfully about their plans only yesterday to celebrate getting their own ship into the air with a rowdy night of rearranging their band spanking new quarters (read arguing about couch placement and roughhousing), and christening their shiny new imperial issued pails. 

“I had a black crush on him when we were younger.” Eridan remarks, still looking straight ahead.

“Yeah?” Eridan can practically feel the eyebrow waggle at that, and he rolls his eyes.

“Yes, I know. We were kids and it was dumb. He was just so infuriating, thinkin he was better than me. God I'm getting angry thinking about what a lispy shithead he was back then.” Eridan stares hard at the Sollux before him now, silent and bleeding. Trapped in a ship, somewhere he never wanted to be. “I can hardly connect that Sol to the one rigged up before be now.”

Eridan feels Karkat’s hand tense in his. His words almost explode out of him. “I just wish he’d talk! He just… He’s just there! Not doing anything! It’s like he’s a troll shell made to look like one of my oldest friends, sent to torment me.” Karkat pulls out of Eridan’s grasp moving to touch Sollux’s cheek. 

Eridan flinches, shocked silent at the raw affection happening right in front of him. Karkat continues “I just want to rip him out of these dripping biomechanical bulges. And the worst part is,” he pauses to laugh maniacally, “we put him there!” He looks back at Eridan “We strung him up and stripped him of everything that made him a troll.” 

Eridan is torn. He wants to stop Karkat looking at him like that. But by fuck does he agree with everything Karkat is saying. The problem is it’s not like they can just start tearing down wires. First of all, that would probably just get Sollux bleeding more, which looking at the smatterings of yellow smeared on pink biowires from his insertion won’t be a good thing. And second, that would leave them stranded in space with no power. No troll wants to go out that way. 

But there is a way to wake a helmsman up. Karkat should know. Eridan isn’t the only one who’s seen the movies. So after a second to think Eridan says “OK”

Karkat looks at him bewildered, some of the mania, thankfully, leaving his eyes. “OK? OK, what?” 

“We can wake him up. I'm the fuckin captain of this coddam ship. I’ll just shunt off manual control to whoever's up at the bridge. We can just wake him up, Kar.” Karkat is now looking at Eridan, more confused. “Look, it's simple. I go to that terminal over there,” Eridan points at the maintenance panel, which he just now notices is blinking yellow, “and tell Sol to fuckin like… disengage, switch to meat mode, wake up, somethin. He then does that, seein as he has control a the whole rig he’s in an all. We then have a fuckn dandy of a chat with him. No more daywalker mode. Helmsmen can turn all that computer brain connection mogo off you know. They don’t stay connected all the time. They have to sleep and they have to talk to people. They have to find romantic partners somehow. How else would they contribute to the drones if they have no concupiscent partners?” Eridan takes a breath to pause.

“I cannot believe I spent the last hour in here twiddling my thumbs.” 

Eridan huffs out a laugh “Yeah. Too busy stressing to actually think. OK. I’ma go turn Sol on now.” Eridan does just that, ignoring Karkat’s snort at his unintended innuendo. The blinking yellow of the maintenance panel is just a “welcome captaiin” printed to the screen that does something funny to Eridan's bloodpusher. He wants Sollux back so badly. 

It’s the gasp of shock from Karkat that tells Eridan something worked after tapping out a hurried command on the interface. He looks over and sees Sollux slumped in his entanglements. It takes a few racing seconds of his bloodpusher to convince himself that no, he hasn't just Killed Sollux. Telling Sollux to “please fuckin swwitch your meat eyes on. Wwe need you awwake in the helmsblock” won't cause him to off himself. 

It’s only a few seconds and Sollux is stirring as much as he can, stretched out between floor and ceiling as he is. 

*

You watch the Captain tap at your manual interface from your camera feed. It’s not hard to tell that he wants you to switch all but your main systems to manual mode, and to sink your consciousness back into your wetware. 

You don’t let yourself wonder why. You just obey the command. 

The worst part, is the brief period of black nothingness as your ocular globes adjust to filtering light again; your brain disconnecting from the ship and reconnecting with the neural pathways of your wetware. 

As you blink open your globes, the first thing you see is the same Secretortionist. You study the red of his eyes, the curve of his horns, and something inside you aches deeply. When you notice the touch of his hand on your cheek, you shy away. 

You hate this, this is the worst. They should just put you back in the pain chamber where at least they can torture you with actual physical pain instead of this deep unnerving foreboding as if you forgot something immeasurably important, the sick fucks. You can’t tell if the troll in front of you is real. He starts swimming before your eyes as they fill with tears.

The Captain steps out from behind the maintenance panel at your wet snarl. “Sol, stop. Calm your overreactin hindbrain.” Why does that name hurt so bad, why does his voice hurt so bad? You’re letting out a high pitched series of clicks from the back of your throat. You wish you weren't here. Both of the trolls in front of you look distressed. That fact hurts you even more and you don’t know why. 

The Secretortionist steps forward again to pap your cheek and your vocalizing stutters to a halt. “What are you doing.” Your voice is a quiet rasp. Static crackles over your skin and is wisped away by the biowires. 

He lets out a quiet “Shhhhhhhhhhh” of breath and leans into you. You feel your eyelids droop at that and you slump in your constraints.  
That’s how they’re going to break you, isn’t it? Emotional whiplash. But at this moment you don’t really care about the consequences of giving into his touch. 

The Captain had stepped forward while you were distracted having a mental breakdown and is now looking at the two of you as if he should be clutching his pearls and fainting. You rasp out a “Captain.” to show respect because you don’t want him to hurt you anymore. 

The troll touching you starts crying. 

“God Kar.” The Captain chokes on the words. “I don’t know what to do.” You don’t know what to do either. You don’t know whether this is more helms training or just plain torture. Maybe they decided they need to break you down to your bones before they can build you up as a helmsman of the empire. 

But it hurts too much to watch the troll cry like that. “Why are you crying.” You can’t remember how to put inflection back into your voice. It’s been so long since you bothered vocalizing anything other than screaming. 

“I” He tries to steady himself on you, swallowing down his noises of distress, his eyes still visibly weeping a brighter red than the red of his irises. “Sollux” He swallows again, “Do you know who I am?” 

You frown for a second, remembering the file you read. “Secretortionist Karkat Vantas. Maroon Blood. 10 sweeps. Official matesprit to Captain Eridan Ampora. But your tears don’t match the color of your eyes. You are a mutant and should be culled.” The response is automatic. Internally you are having a mental spasm realizing that this is most likely not a simulation. That you are most likely not still in Helmstraining and that, in fact, you are living and breathing on a real ship out in real space and floating far away from all that you can remember.

This thought relaxes you immensely.

The Captain snarls at your words while The Secretortionist just stares in shock. “Over my dead body are you gonna cull him, Sol.” He starts towards you, horns lowered aggressively “What the fuck are you thinkin threatening him with me right here.” You are free. You do not give a single flying fuck who these people are anymore. You let yourself bask in your newly discovered freedom for the moment.

The Secretortionist places a hand on his arm, slowing him. “Stop, please, Eridan. None of us are rational right now.” He takes a steadying breath, tears still brimming in his eyes. “God. Fucking hell. This is so messed up.” 

The Captain pulls Karkat to face him, gripping both his arms in each of his. “I don’t want to flip on you Kar. I don’t” *wheeze* “I don’t know what I’m doing. You’re my matesprit and I don’t want to lose you but I am seriously feeling some emotional upheaval right now. Do you ever wish you could go back and pick a different helmsman?” Eheheh. As if you are going to stay on this lump of a spaceship now that you know it is really under your control and therefore escapable.

The Secretortionist pulls out of his grip and snarls “Take that back! Fuck you do you regret saving Sollux.”

The Captain runs a hand through his hair, messing up the quaff. It accents the mania in his eyes “Haha no. You’re right. This is exactly what I would do again and again if I could go back, but he doesn’t even remember us! Nothing!” He looks back at you now, eyes brimming with emotion, “not a shred of recollection for our sorry asses are in those globes. And god Kar. I want to save you from losing yourself in them. But I can’t let myself flip pale for you. I need you as my matesprit. I love you Karkat Vantas.”

The Secretortionist looks small, but smiles “I love you as far as the stars stretch.”

The Captain gives a small smile back, “further.”

The Secretortionist suddenly turns back to you. You were enjoying some quality drama thank you very much and now he has to ruin it by acknowledging your existence. “What should we do with you Sollux? Do you even want to be fixed.”

“Permission to speak freely?”

The Secretiotionist looks at you for a second “Granted.” The Captain makes no move to rescind the permission, so you take his matesprit’s word for it.

“So… I assume I knew you guys or something? Like I’m sort of getting the gist here that I may have known you… before my mind was sucked out through my ass and helmsman training overwrote our previous acquaintanceship. So what I’m asking is this. Are you maybe possibly insinuating that you would be willing to let me go? Let me live my life as a troll free from these squishy constraints? Because if that is what you’re getting at then sign me the fuck off and out of here. 

“I will be your long lost hive mate. I will prostrate myself before you and lick your aristocratic boots. But also, what the fuck were you thinking choosing a temperamental rebellious helmsman to steer your ship? Did you want to die in the cold vacuum of space? I was not ready to be a ship. Did you not read the file. Even I read the file.” Then you tense. Expecting pain. Expecting your words to be the trigger revealing this to all be a test. You didn’t bother slowing your tirade. This might have been the only chance to speak your mind before being shut down by the simulation. 

“Ahh there it is.” The Captain drawls. “Now I remember how to hate you.”

“Eheheh, is that an offer?” you waggle your eyebrows at him and enjoy the way he bristles and puffs himself up. “As if I wou-”

“Please, bitches.” Karkat interrupts loud enough to drown out the rest of the Captain's complaining. *sigh* “And you were being so romantic too. I am not auspising your long lusted after one night fuck and rumble.”

Eridan grumbles “Not askin you t-”

“Can we please get back to the topic of what we need to do with Sollux.”

“I am down to talking about me right now because you weirdos-”

“Please for the love of all that is sacred and undefiled by whatever crap was about to come out of your mouth. Let me speak! I will not sit here while you too squabble! If you make one more sarcastic remark I am marching straight back to my block and not coming out till we land in a week! And that means you,” He points harshly at the Captain, “will be bunking with someone who can tolerate pan addled fuckwhits with the maturity level of half done grub sauce! And listen carefully when I say that, that someone is not me!”

“Loud and clear, Kar”

“Shut the fuck up and listen closely.” You like this man. You like this man immensely. You can see why past you was close to him. “You!” He points at you. You are partly afraid and partly excited. What does he have to say about you!

“Let me make everything clear for you. You don’t want to be here. You don’t want to be a helmsman. But somehow they took you and they carved out your memory box to force you into that job anyway. Am I correct?” god this man is intense. 

You lick your lips “Yeah. You got me.”

“This presents a problem for us. We are currently in space. We are flying in the cold depths of space and if we released you right now, we would stay in space, until the crew inevitably rebelled against the Captain, killed him, killed me to get to him, and strung you up again so they can get out of space. 

“In this scenario we are dead and you are still doomed to be a helmsman till you fry yourself out.”

“Well when you put it that way.”

“Shush. I am not finished. Option two. When we land at port we say we need a new helmsman. That this one is no good and that we should let him go instead. They go ‘Ok we can do that just hand him over so he can be culled.’ If we don’t hand you over they will wonder why we need a new helmsman, and won’t give us one. If we do hand you over you will be culled. That is not an option”

“Obviously” He glares at you. As if you can resist interrupting. You have not been punished yet. You see no downside. 

He continues as if you said nothing, “the best course of action I can see - and to be honest Sollux you might not like it - is for us to act as if you are a steller helmsman, the best we ever could have got! And wait till someone has a breakthrough to fix this shit situation. Because I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing here. I was not trained for this. I shouldn't be the only one to have to do all the pan lifting, one of you come up with a solution to this clusterfuck!”

“Well I think that’s a solid plan, Kar. Sollux, no sarcastic remarks or crywriggler whinging?” They are both looking at you now. 

“My options are, Culled, constrained to a life of torture by hand of rebellious crew, or hang out with you fucks till the end of my existence.” You pretend to think about it. “I think I’ll go with culled.”

The Secretiotionist’s face falls in sudden despair and the Captain yells “No! That wasn't a real option!”

“Joaking. Ha, I fooled you both. What was I, a wimp in my younger sweeps? Did I have the humor of a bleatbeast? Or could you always never take a joke.”

“No the bleatbeast option was right.” The Captain remarks. 

“Hey fuck you”

“Fuck you, you said I couldn't take a joke, look at you not taking a fuckin simple jibe, a simple jest-”

“Fuck your jest.”

The Secretiotionist physically steps in between the two of you, “Fuck you both, I am not auspising.” the Captain hugs him from his side.

“I won’t ask you too. I’m calm.”

You mutter “Fuck you you’re calm.”

“I said I’m calm!” he yells at you over his matesprit’s shoulder.

The Secretiotionist shoves out of his hold and starts walking towards the door. “That is it. I have officially left the orbit of giving a fuck. I am going the fuck to sleep.”

“Kar, babe.”

“Nope. You can kiss this sweet ass on the way out the door.” he pulls the door open and turns, “Good day to you both and also fuck off.” then slams it as hard as a hull door can slam.

The Captain gives you one last scowl then chases after him. If you could give the finger to his retreating back you would. You say “That’s right. Fuck right off.” He holds up one of his middle fingers with his back still turned, the bastard.

So now to come up with a plan that involves not being a helmsman, not being culled, and not losing sight of the two most interesting trolls you’ve ever met.


End file.
